An Ethereum Classic Fork Snapshot Is Coming Next Week

Next week the ethereum classic (ETC) community is expecting to receive coins from a ‘snapshot’ fork called ‘callisto’ (CLO). The clone will be an exact copy of the ETC chain up until block 5,500,000 and ETC holders will receive a 1:1 ratio of CLO coins.

The First High Profile Hard Fork Is About to Get Forked

The funny thing about ethereum classic is that it was one of the first high profile blockchain splits and ethereum (ETH) holders received a 1:1 ratio of ETC after the hard fork at block 1,920,000. The fork was caused by members of the Ethereum community because they rejected the idea to ‘bail out’ the DAO, an ETH application that lost $150Mn that year. Some individuals firmly believe that ETC is the ‘one true’ Ethereum network. Callisto, however, is not quite like the ETC hard fork as it’s a snapshot much like bitcoin gold, bitcoin diamond, and the other clones that appeared over the past year.

Essentially CLO coins will share the same history as the existing ETC chain but from block 5,500,000 and forward the network will be its own. The cloning is expected to happen next week sometime on or after March 2. The reason behind the snapshot is because CLO developers believe there are issues regarding ETC’s smart contract design. According to the CLO white paper ETC is susceptible to smart contract hacks much like the DAO platform. The CLO developers plan to create a “Official Smart-contract Auditing Department of CLO & ETC,” so one could assume the snapshot may be considered an extension of the ETC community.

“The main goal of callisto is to research and develop a reference implementation of self-sustaining, self-governed, self-funded blockchain ecosystem and development environment,” explains the CLO white paper.

Callisto aims to establish a secure and contribution-friendly environment for further protocol development and improvements. It will rely on a built-in system of smart-contracts to achieve this goal.

Cold Staking and a Developer Called Dexaran

There’s little information on the creators of the ETC clone other than the Github page that describes the callisto network project in more detail. The developer working on the project goes by the name Dexaran, and he also has worked on an ICO called ‘DEX.’ Another aspect of the project is the introduction of ‘Cold Staking’ which acts similarly to the Proof of Stake consensus system that rewards currency holders.

“It should be noted that the ETC does not have any incentives for coin holders — The whole emission is completely controlled by miners, and their influence grows with the growth of the network. Callisto introduces a Cold staking protocol that rewards coin holders for being network participants,” explains the callisto team.

Cold staking is a smart-contract based process that allows CLO holders to earn interest in a total CLO emission when they hold CLO coins at their balances for long enough period of staking time (1 month by default). Cold stakers are not required to run a node to participate in cold staking process. Cold stakers are not validating transactions and the whole system can remain fully PoW (Proof of Work) which is important since ETC adheres to POW consensys.

The ETC Snapshot Follows the Recent Birth of the Litecoin Cash Network

The upcoming ethereum classic snapshot has boosted the price of ETC quite a bit, and the currency had reached a high of $45 two days ago. It also follows the recent litecoin (LTC) snapshot called litecoin cash (LCC) which came to life on February 20. Before the LCC fork, the price of LTC spiked considerably as well but has since lost those gains. The clone has minimal infrastructure and is only worth 2 percent of LTC’s price at $4-5 per LCC.

What do you think about the upcoming ETC snapshot called callisto? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Jamie Redman

Jamie Redman is a financial tech journalist living in Florida. Redman has been an active member of the cryptocurrency community since 2011. He has a passion for Bitcoin, open source code, and decentralized applications. Redman has written thousands of articles for news.Bitcoin.com about the disruptive protocols emerging today.

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